


Kiss Me And Cry

by AkiRah



Category: Brick (2005)
Genre: After the Movie, F/M, Mrs. Kasprzck's accelerated english, Second person POV, Wuthering Heights - Freeform, a line from the novel struck me as being hideously apt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkiRah/pseuds/AkiRah
Summary: You’re back in English class, three days after Em’s body was found in the trunk of Tug’s car and the school’s still buzzing about Laura Dannon’s arrest. Oh sure, Brad gets mentioned but he feels like a footnote.And that's what he was.You sit in your desk and you feel the eyes on your bruises and cuts and know that your line of “I fell” is sitting rough in a lot of people’s understanding but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.Em’s funeral is in a couple of days.Laura should have a hearing any day now.





	Kiss Me And Cry

I  
The classroom copy of _Wuthering Heights_ has seen better days. The cover’s cracked with white lines where it’s been bent too many directions too many times and with the cut on your arm still healing and your body covered in bruises, you can relate. Brain collected the notes for you, without you even having to ask so you’re not as far behind as you should be. The book isn’t _long_ , you were able to get caught up on the bus yesterday and today.  
The book’s not complicated, but you can’t get Em and Laura out of your head.  
They crowd around like ghosts.

II  
You can’t attend the trial and Brain’s warned you not to go but here you are. Standing in the parking lot watching the camera flock up to where Laura is making her way up the stairs. She’s dressed like a convict but she reminds you of a widow. You think you can still taste her lipstick. The desperate plea not to do it. Not to do what’d you’d already done, what you had to do because she’d killed Em.  
Not directly, but she was responsible.  
For a moment you think she sees you, past the cameras with the duct tape covering the slash on your jacket.  
What must she think? That you’re there to pass judgement when really you’re there out of a twisted form of self-punishment. Watching what _might have been_ go down in flames. 

III  
At the funeral all you can hear is Em telling you to let her go. And you can’t. You’re stupid and stubborn and if it weren’t for Brain at your side you’d probably break down. They’ve dressed her in blue and tried to make her look serene, like you hadn’t left her under a tarp for three days while you tried to solve what’d happened.  
She looks beautiful and all you can see is her lying in the arroyo, water moving her hair like a gentle breeze.  
Her hands are placed over her belly and that’s a heart ache you can’t think about.  
_Motherfucker_ , you hear in Laura’s voice.  
The dirtiest word

IV  
The passage catches your eye in class. Not because of what’s happening but because the words in another context rock you to the core. “Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and ring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you—they’ll damn you.”  
And you think about Laura. The tears on her cheeks as she clung to your neck. The way she went to kiss you to prove that she loved you.  
The way you couldn’t trust it.  
Wouldn’t take it all back.  
She murdered Emily.  
And you love her anyway.


End file.
